


This Place is Cold as Death

by ThreeHats



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Mumintroll | Moomins Series - Tove Jansson
Genre: Crack, Crossover, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-01
Updated: 2016-09-01
Packaged: 2018-08-12 07:16:53
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,101
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7925581
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThreeHats/pseuds/ThreeHats
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>As I drift higher and higher, my large round body flying languidly upwards toward the shiny blue-green marble in the sky, the thoughts in my head become jumbled, upside-down. The words no longer fit together. My consciousness tries to make sense of it all, but that was already weak enough. My brainwaves grow uneasy and rough, and the sailboat of my mind threatens to cast itself upon the rocks rather than risk traversing the ocean of my thought.</p><p>I realize now that I am unable to breathe.</p><p> </p><p>All characters, locations and scenarios were pulled out of a hat to create this story, which was written in 30 minutes or less.</p>
            </blockquote>





	This Place is Cold as Death

**Characters:** Dr Strange, Moomin Troll  
 **Location:** TEH MOON  
 **Scenario:** Fighting Demons (Funky Blue Monkey)

 

All characters, locations and scenarios were pulled out of a hat to create this story, which was written in 30 minutes or less.

\--

 

As I walk, the ground beneath my feet grows ashen and white. A cold penetrates what little air exists here as I breathe, my eyes searching the desolate horizon as I search the stars for signs of warmth. Signs of life.

There overhead it floats, watching me with blue indifference. Warm and alive. So many lights. Millions. Fires that beckon, flames that sing and burst in golden hours of daytime, when the sun recedes on the horizon and paints the world with rosey, infinite heat.

Warmth enough for a world of people.

Or just one.

I stare transfixed at the planet overhead as I begin to ascend. No gravity here. Nothing here at all. No warmth. Here is possibly the coldest place I have ever known. The weightlessness tickles what little senses I still have. I feel it - the warmth of the human race, burning a billion miles from where I stand, a beacon that blazes in the inky blackness of space, calling to me. Always calling to me. I cannot respond. I never could. I have no voice. I have no emotion. All I feel is the need. The cold. The emptiness. The deathly silence within and without.

As I drift higher and higher, my large round body flying languidly upwards toward the shiny blue-green marble in the sky, the thoughts in my head become jumbled, upside-down. The words no longer fit together. My consciousness tries to make sense of it all, but that was already weak enough. My brainwaves grow uneasy and rough, and the sailboat of my mind threatens to cast itself upon the rocks rather than risk traversing the ocean of my thought.

I realize now that I am unable to breathe.

With some difficulty, I allow myself to return to the cold, callous ground. My enormous figure collapses clumsily upon the barren wastes beneath me, and I sink. I sink into myself, my broad frame steadying as I attempt to fasten still both my body and mind. Still I stare up at the Earth above me, ambivalent. The planet regards me with indifference, keeping its many warm lights hidden from view as I peer up, my mouth set in a hollow grimace. A subtle breeze mocks me, bristling at my lips as I scowl.

I can breathe again.

My confusion is too slow to reach my eyes - my emotions all mixing together in my grotesquely large stomach, creating a soft, angry mess within me that gurgles and boils. But it never rises, never reaches. The heat of my frustration isn't enough to warm me.

"Looks like she's figuring it out."

My impossibly wide eyes turn to stare at the owner of the smug, self satisfied voice. I shouldn't be able to hear that. I shouldn't be able to hear anybody. And if I do hear someone, it should be their death throes as I snuff out the light of their existence as I crawl upon them, watch the fire in their eyes die as I draw it into myself.

But now I see him, and he is smiling. And there is warmth in not only his voice, but in his eyes, and his hands. His hands. No, not just warm. Hot. Violently hot. He holds them at either side of his cloaked body, his attire decorated bright blue and red. Energy radiates from him as he speaks to his companion, a stubby white troll-ish creature.

"Are you sure this is the right way to deal with this?" the Moomin creature spoke, strange vapour emerging from his snout as his breath met with the moon's atmosphere. "I mean, she's scary and all... But this seems..."

"Cruel?" asked the tall, bearded man thing. His cloak billowed unnaturally, as did his ego. "My friend, we're doing this being a kindness. She would never be satisfied on Earth. She's a Groke."

I know this word. This word resounds through my head, dredging up old memories of children screaming as they notice me standing at the end of their garden in the dark of night. Memories of fires snuffed out. Memories of men and women and other such creatures staring up at me in horror and confusion before I remove the unfortunate emotion from their eyes and replace it with a deathly fog. Their warmth entering me. The word. The name. The Groke.

Is that what I am?

"You're lucky, Moomin Troll," the man observes absently, "this particular demon has taken many a life, I'm sure it wouldn't have thought twice about taking yours."

"If it even thinks at all," the youthful Moomin boy gasps. He has noticed I am watching him. Hearing him. I begin moving in his direction. "Get back, you frightening thing!"

"I brought her to this place because it's the coldest place I know of where life can still flourish," the bearded man continues, "this part of the moon, it used to be home to the Inhuman royal family. As such there is still a thin pocket of breathable atmosphere that still lingers. That should be enough for our dark visitor..."

I listen. It is all I am able to do.

"Grokes long for warmth," the kindly Doctor explains, "they feed off of it. Sometimes it's not so bad. Sometimes it just happens upon a sleeping group of campers and drinks happily from their fire, leaving without disturbing a one of them. Or sometimes it just finds a lost child playing in the woods by itself, and it sees the warmth within them and..." His words stop. I imagine he is feeling something. It doesn't look pleasant. "This is our only choice. The humane choice."

"I hope you're right," Moomin troll remarks, gaping at me the whole time.

"As do I," the strange man waves his arms in a single flourish and speaks aloud words that seem to bite into the fabric of space. "By the blessed Vishanti, return us home!"

The two disappear in a flurry of indandescent energy. The warmth is here and gone. Too late to savor. It vanishes before I can even taste it on the wind.

I turn to look up at the planet once more. The burning orb of warmth, with so many dancing lights and fires to consume.

I wait. Even as the sun's rays disappear, leaving me in total darkness, where warmth cannot touch, I wait.

This place is cold as death.


End file.
